O-"FISH"-ally the Best Dad

Here's another Fathers Day card, this one created for my dad. My dad is a man who has had many different hobbies, one of them being raising and breeding tropical fish. I vividly remember growing up with a patio full of aquariums...over fifty of them...all immaculately kept and filled with dozens of beautiful varieties of gouramis, tetras, mollies and barbs. Dad raised and bred his fish, selling them to local pet shops to earn money to buy fish food, supplies and even more aquariums to keep his hobby growing.  So when I came across Ilda Dias' fabulous Box Card style aquarium, I was immediately inspired and knew I had to try something similar for dear old Dad.

As you can tell from this top view of the card, the  construction of aquarium is basically the same as with the familiar Card In A Box style card that has recently become quite popular. Only difference is that I added the struts on both the top and bottom of the box and cut a window in the front panel. The paper pieced fish were glued onto strips of clear acetate which were attached to the top and bottom struts, to make them appear to be swimming in the aquarium. Coral and seaweed were attached to the bottom struts. After I had everything inside placed where I wanted, I adhered a piece of acetate to fit inside the window frame to enclose the box and make it look like a fish tank.

The cutting file for these cute pair of clownfish was created and shared by Make The Cut (MTC) forum member Berryone in the MTC Gallery. Coral and seaweed are Cricut cutting files from the Life Is A Beach cartridge. And the ocean scene used for the background is a very old patterned paper from Flair Designs which I found in my scrapbook paper stash.

Used the same paper on the back of the aquarium as a backdrop for my sentiment.

And here's the card folded flat. Poor Dad had to spend his Fathers Day this year in a nursing facility recovering from some health issues, but it was nice to see his face light up for a brief moment as he opened this card. And the good news is, his physical therapists decided yesterday that he's finally strong enough to go home next week. Hurray! It'll be nice to have Dad home again and our lives return to some normalcy.